The CFO-CMO balancing act: How efficient marketing keeps everyone happy
Chief Marking Officers are in a perpetual balancing act, demonstrating ROI from marketing activities under the scrutiny of the Chief Financial Officer.
Data Trust
This five-minute checkup will help assess trust in your marketing data.
What you need to know to be tech-ready for 2024
As I’m writing this, your floor staff will only have 1,274 more repeats of “All I Want for Christmas” to endure and chances are they were out of Whamageddon weeks ago.
Privacy reform safe bets: Stop using third-party data; audit your tags, review your tech stack, deal with dark data… by Christmas 2024
Government is trying to buy itself some time to decide on the hard, highly disruptive stuff thrown up by the Privacy Act review. The problem is, says Digital Balance MD, Richard Taylor, the deadlines for industry haven’t moved. We’ve already got less than half the time EU businesses had to prepare for GDPR. Here’s four things to do by Xmas 2024.
How dark patterns help brands like Temu and Shein to drive sales
‘Dark patterns’ are intricately designed digital experiences that exploit human psychology – often at the expense of users’ best interests
Mi3’s In-depth CDP investigation
The Digital Balance team have offered Mi3 insights relating to CDP deployment and what we are seeing in the market.
Why retailers should be like Kmart and Target and review their tech stacks
As marketing budgets continue to shrink, many in the C-suite are trying to find ways to save money while maintaining, or preferably increasing, sales.
Fines for data mishandling won’t be the greatest cost to your business. Fixing reputational damage will be.
While a minimum $50m fine is not to be sneezed at, that could be just the beginning of your financial woes if your brand experiences a data breach.
Brands and influencers jump in as Threads blocks Twitter’s flight path
Savvy brands will take advantage of the current lack of advertising to increase their organic following across both Threads and Instagram.
Privacy Awareness Week: 1 – 7 May 2023
Privacy is fundamental to our existence. But how do we best protect it in today’s digital world?
Privacy Act Review Report
Digital Balance looks at the impact of the “Privacy Act Review – Report”, recommendations and key proposals
AI platforms and their impact on Google search
Marketers need to adapt their search strategies to cater for an increase in natural-language searches made via voice or AI search engines.
Australian Privacy Update – Jan 2023
2023 is expected to bring significant changes to Australian privacy laws after a a review of the Privacy Act has been completed. Now is the time to get ready for cookie consent and more.
The future of onsite analytics and advertising tracking in 2023 and beyond
Digital Balance’s MD, Richard Taylor, on the death of cookies, and how this will affect analytics, and advertising tracking in 2023 and beyond.
Thinking of investing in attribution, predictive modelling or a DMP? Start by checking the quality of your data.
We believe that data governance and data quality are the foundations of analytics, and where businesses will get the most value for money. Patch-work fixes are a drain on resources and overtime become very costly.
Ebiquity Acquires Digital Balance
It is with great pleasure I announce our most exciting venture to date; the acquisition of Digital Balance by Ebiquity – a leading independent marketing and media analytics consultancy. Ebiquity is a great fit and giant step forward for our business. We share very similar values around agility, independence, honesty and being straight-forward. We’re looking forward to having access to Ebiquity’s core services, and leverage some of the expertise and networks that they bring to the table.
Announcing our Google Analytics 360 partnership
We’ve been working hard over the last few months and we’re excited to announce that we’re now officially a Google Analytics 360 partner. As an authorised Google Analytics Certified Partner (GACP) we’ve been endorsed by Google, as one of a few companies in Australia able to provide expertise across both their standard and premium solutions.
How much is that click really worth? The hidden reality of Facebook negative sentiment.
Figuring out what drives clicks and honing in on that will certainly drive traffic to your site – but are you listening to what your audience is saying?
How to measure your entire marketing strategy in 4 crazily simple KPIs.
Does hearing the term “KPI” fill you with fear? A step by step guide to setting 4 simple digital KPIs for your entire customer journey.
Measuring personalised experiences
Personalisation measurement is a little different. The normal way we measure stuff is page-based, or click-based, but that no longer works for a personalised experience. See how you can measure if your personalisation efforts are paying off.
What Makes a Good Dashboard
Are you suffering from analysis paralysis? Are you short on time and need a tool to help you quickly see your most important information? If so, a dashboard could be the answer.
The value of a dislike.
The introduction of a ‘dislike’ button could produce some interesting data insights for marketing on Facebook. But then what implications will it also have on brands?
Data insights: how to get the real story.
Your data can give you really interesting and useful facts about your brand, but there are a few things you need to do to get there.
Your offline and online audiences are the same people.
Do you know who your customers are? Using insights from your data helps you build a better picture of your personas so you can engage them more effectively.
Why you need to define your purpose before you tackle social.
Is it really necessary for brands have more than one Facebook or Twitter account? Customers can easily engage brands on social, therefore many brands make use of dedicated customer service accounts. But before you launch into social overdrive you need to define your purpose for being on social.
Stop guessing – map your customer journey with Google data.
Data provides deeper insight and understanding of the decision-making process of your customers. Here’s how to use Think with Google’s planning tool along with their wealth of data to inform your Customer Journey maps.
Data analysis – are you being oversold on your analytics?
With many new businesses being borne out of ‘big data’, the term ‘data insights’ is being flung around left right and centre, and organisations are paying big dollars to analytics companies that promise rousing discoveries about their consumers.
But can true consumer insights be found in data analysis alone?
Use data for good: 3 rules to live by for personalisation strategy.
Your customer data is priceless for helping with personalisation, but to avoid being too invasive you’ll need to set boundaries and define your purpose.
3 suggestions to make your beautiful data story heard.
You’ve put all the hard work into collecting the data and crafting a beautiful story with it but has anyone seen it yet? Get seen, get heard, get understood. Here’s how.
Are you guilty of hiding your brand’s personality on social?
Don’t let the social media crowd swallow you up, stand up and be noticed. Developing your brand personality allows you to send a clear message to your audience about who you are.
How do I express a data driven story?
Could your data be more engaging? Find out how to relate data to your colleagues in a more compelling way with visual storytelling.
Planners are connectors.
Digital in the UK is vast and sophisticated with organisations making their mark through delivering complex digital solutions. How does a planner help?
Hate data, love stories!
Do you struggle to get your colleagues to relate to your data analysis? Let’s talk storytelling with numbers. Find out how to apply a narrative to your data to so it’s more interesting and engaging for your audience.
How to train your thinking brain.
Being a planner involves thinking, and lots of it. Developing your own style of creating and musing is an important part of this role, find out 4 ways to stretch your thinking.
Communication – the 7th essential skill of a digital planner.
Are your stakeholders confused by complex ideas and jargon? Discover how communicate your ideas more effectively.
‘Half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.’
How well is your advertising going? Recent reports suggest around half your display spend could be wasted. We take a look at what this means and what you can do about it.
Dear Marketing Director, is your digital strategy working?
Digital is one of the most measurable mediums, yet marketing directors are often uncertain whether their marketing campaign is making a difference. This starts with knowing what to measure…
Are you using your web analytics as a trophy or a weapon?
Valuable time and money is being spent by companies as they culturally ready themselves for social and re-align their organisational structure to manage content. But what about our web analytics? Isn’t it time that we properly understood how to treat them?
Learning analytics in higher education – why we still have a long way to go.
‘Learning analytics’ is being touted as a key trend to look out for in EdTech, but scratch the surface and you’ll find there’s not much substance behind most examples. See why we’ve got a long way to go before learning analytics becomes a reality in Higher Ed.
Flat-packed marketing technology
Your flat-packed marketing technology isn’t going to build itself. Have you got a screwdriver handy?
How to curate content
Are you curating articles as part of your content marketing? Filtering information and sharing it is just part of the process. Follow these 6 steps to become a valuable source of information that your target audience will return to.
The power of curation.
Curated content is a great way of increasing your social reach, so why aren’t you using it as part of your content strategy? Find out why you should be sharing the knowledge you discover with your target audience.
Applying database marketing techniques to digital marketing.
Over the last few years the lines between database marketing and digital marketing have really blurred. It used to be quite clear cut. But now we can apply the same tried and tested techniques to leverage our customer data and to help identify prospects in the vast swath of digital data.
Managing online communities
After recently completing a Lithium Community Management course, De reflects on the increased adoption of digital communities by brands as part of their online marketing.
Just because you can measure it, doesn’t mean you should.
Figuring out what you should measure, versus what you could measure, is what separates the wheat from the chaff. With a shotgun approach to measurement, you’ll likely just overwhelm yourself and devalue your data accuracy over time. Focus on the big picture stuff to get value and direction to your analytics.
The imperial value of the digital brief: a client-side planner’s guide
There are a number of ways to approach digital briefs, but often we’re in such a rush to get them written that we overlook the key elements. We look at some of the questions you should be asking to make your brief as effective as possible.
Uncovering your content marketing opportunity.
Content is everywhere, but how do you stay ahead of the game and make sure your brand is noticed? Check out our top tips for creating an effective content marketing plan.
Frameworks give us freedom of thought
I’m always interested in how digital strategists explain their role in the digital process and was inspired by the series of frameworks in this presentation I recently found from Bud Caddell.
Social media governance – a living, breathing beast.
Building a social media governance framework shouldn’t be something to tick off your ‘to-do’ list. Building a set of rules for something that is social can work, so long as it lives in a social way.
The Emperor is still being sold the latest season’s threads.
There’s a certain amount of responsibility that comes with our digital recommendations, and taking people along the learning journey with us is part of the golden thread of digital transformation for a company.
Higher ed lacks a strategic approach to digital marketing.
Digital marketing teams in the higher education sector are struggling to make the most of the opportunities that digital offers.
A yardstick for your digital content playbook.
The digital landscape is literally crawling in content, with creators constantly trying to attract our attention. But how do you work out what is worthy of your time?
Action is the antidote to fear
Like so many of the audience, I watch Todd on The Gruen Transfer each week and each week he always, for me, gets to the truth of the advertising message before the others. So I was really excited to experience what he had to say in the flesh and to see if I could soak up some of his creativity.
What is it that makes a good digital team great?
I think it’s many things, but one thing stands above all else – their passion.
I’ve helped nurture one or two digital teams over the years and I have to say for each team, I’m immensely proud of what they’ve achieved.
And I think that comes from trust; letting them flourish in digital communications, taking the initiative and making mistakes along the way but learning from them too.
What to do when inspiration doesn’t strike
I’ve just had one of those days. Actually, make it one of those weeks. Concentration has been very hard to come by which is not helpful when you are on a short deadline. That loads on the pressure and then it’s even harder to find the way to flick the switch.
I didn’t listen to my own advice
Don’t you just hate that? I tell people things, sometimes until it feels like I am blue in the face from the efforts of my passion to get the point across – “how can you not see what your own customers see?”. And then I went and committed the same crime myself.
how to make sure everyone is created equal in an agency relationship
Have you ever thought about how you’re different to your agency account team? And I don’t just mean in a “they get to wear jeans to the office” kind of way either.
It took a rush of Coldplay’s blood to the head get me started
So here I am. Finally. I think I may take the title out for most procrastinated over blog ever even though I have sold the benefits and practicalities of blogging many, many times over. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am thinking too much about this and the best way to learn is to do it. At least that’s what I coached myself into thinking over my morning coffee, thanks Chris Martin.
Family Business Australia
Just a quick post to say that I’m presenting at the Family Business Australia conference, held at the Hyatt Regency in Perth WA, from September 1st to the 3rd 2011.
My 1 hour presentation is about using LinkedIn to build your personal profile.